


A Chapter of Accidents

by dracoqueen22



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe - Canon, Consent Issues on Both Sides, Frame Type Differences, Knotting, M/M, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18842170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: Deadlock and Starscream have never gotten along. There’s always been an unhealthy distaste between them. Unfortunately, a lingering Senate experiment lurks in their coding, and it’s impossible to escape.





	A Chapter of Accidents

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sponsored fic by a wonderful fan. Feedback, as always, is welcome, appreciated, and encouraged.

The first time they met, Deadlock hated Starscream, and the feeling was obviously mutual. The Seeker gave him a sneer, a look of utter distaste and dismissal, as Megatron forced them to shake hands. Like he couldn’t bear to touch a grounder.   
  
The painful shock of charge that passed between them when their palms met was clearly a sign from the Primes of old that they would never be friends. They were allies in name only, united by a single cause -- the Decepticons. They were trusted by Megatron and trusted him in return, and for that reason alone, they worked together.   
  
Angrily. Untrustingly. But professionally.   
  
Deadlock hated Starscream’s arrogance, his grandiose self-importance, the way he strutted around base as if he were the sexiest mech on two legs, and how he sneered at any Decepticon who had the audacity to bear wheels rather than wings. He was rude, and he was snide, and more than a few times, Deadlock wanted to punch him.   
  
Which was why he couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten here. Bent over a table. With Starscream. Why he couldn’t seem to tear his hands away from the Seeker’s sleek, smooth armor. Why he couldn’t stop tasting Starscream’s intake and burying himself in Starscream’s field. Why his plating shuffled aside to allow the scrape and pinch of Starscream’s talons.   
  
Why he wanted more and more and more.   
  
It started with a talk, then an argument, then a fight. Then somehow they were kissing, biting, clawing at each other, vents roaring and fields clashing with fire and brimstone. Deadlock’s processor spun, need punching into his internals and twisting, demanding.   
  
Suddenly, there was nothing in the universe he wanted more than Starscream beneath him, squirming, hot, wet, stuffed to the brim.   
  
"Open," Deadlock demanded as he rutted against Starscream, his spikehead grinding on Starscream's valve panel and leaving streaks of pre-fluid behind. "Open now, you fragger."   
  
Starscream laughed, and his thighs scrubbed along Deadlock's hips, his talons sinking further into seams. "You want me," he said, singsong, as he bucked up, grinding hard and sharp.   
  
"As much as you want me," Deadlock growled and bore down on Starscream, pinning the lighter Seeker beneath him. " _Open_."   
  
Starscream shuddered, but his frame yielded, and his panel snicked aside, letting Deadlock rut against the dripping, swollen pleats of his valve. Starscream's field smacked against his, molten and sticky with want, and he tossed his head back, arching in silent demand.   
  
Deadlock grinned. "Good boy." Obedience, he liked it.   
  
He took advantage of the bared intake, burying his mouth against it, lips and denta scraping over sensitive cables. Starscream bucked up, hips twisting, and Deadlock obliged, sinking into Starscream in one long, deep push. He growled, electric pleasure lighting up his backstrut.   
  
Primus.   
  
Starscream was hot and tight, and he rippled around Deadlock in hungry waves, so slick and accommodating. Deadlock latched his mouth on Starscream's intake, denta leaving marks behind. Starscream gasped and pain flashed through Deadlock's sensor net as sharp Seeker talons sank into his cables, drawing energon.   
  
More. He wanted more.   
  
Deadlock sank deep and paused, throbbing in the tight clasp of Starscream's valve, sucking in Starscream's scent. There was something intoxicating about it, something more than the wax-scent, the ozone, the odor of atmosphere clinging to his plating. Starscream smelled delicious, like the sweetest treat he'd once stolen from a candy shop in Rodion.   
  
"Move, damn you," Starscream snarled, and his claws raked Deadlock's plating, leaving scores in the thick armor. "I'll kill you, you fragging...!"   
  
Words bit off as Deadlock thrust into him, hard, bearing Starscream down onto the table. He grabbed Starscream's hips with both hands, yanking him into each thrust, bottoming deep every time. He fragged Starscream like he was staking a claim, and maybe he was, because damn if he was going to let anyone touch his Seeker ever again.   
  
Starscream was his. From this point on. Starscream was his.   
  
Somewhere, in the haze, that thought struck him as odd. Strange. But then Starscream writhed beneath him, moaned, his valve clutching and rippling, and Deadlock's focus zeroed in on the pleasure pulsing in Starscream's field.   
  
Ecstasy built and knotted at the base of Deadlock's spine. He thrust hard into Starscream, the clangs of their frames coming together exceptionally loud in the conference room. Starscream's wings kept clattering on the table, and they were leaving streaks of paint on the surface, but Deadlock didn't care. He'd buff them out later.   
  
Or maybe he'd leave them. Let everyone know what he'd done to Starscream, how he'd claimed the mercurial Seeker, so everyone would know Starscream was his.   
  
Starscream keened and bucked up against him, spike surging free, rubbing against Deadlock's abdomen. His field was a molten pull of want, and he pawed at Deadlock's clavicle, yanking him down into a kiss that clashed denta and glossa. There was no affection in the push of his field, but there was hunger, and that was all Deadlock needed.   
  
He thrust hard. He thrust deep. He ground against Starscream's ceiling node and angled to apply a direct pressure on the Seeker's anterior cluster. Starscream shrieked and thrashed beneath him, charge erupting over his armor in a skittering blue wave.   
  
Deadlock rasped a chuckle, his grin feral. "That's right," he purred. "Overload for me, Starscream. Give it to me."   
  
And he did.   
  
Starscream tossed his head back and overloaded hard, thighs clamping around Deadlock, valve spiraling tight and hot and wet, his claws leaving more tears in Deadlock's armor. His wings clattered on the table, his intake bared, and Deadlock took the offer, latching his denta on Starscream's throat. The vibrations of the Seeker's moans rattled his lips.   
  
Perfect.   
  
Starscream dragged in frantic, rattling ventilations. He squirmed beneath Deadlock and arched up, his spike still firm against Deadlock's belly.   
  
"More," he demanded, and Deadlock laughed into his intake.   
  
"Yeah? You want it?" Deadlock grinned, his spike throbbing in Starscream's valve, still aching, but something holding him back, keeping him from tipping over the edge.   
  
Starscream's optics flashed. He pawed at Deadlock's chestplate, and a low growl rose in his chassis, his thighs squeezing in tight.   
  
"Open," he demanded as his hands skated all over Deadlock's chassis, skimming his sides, his seams, his shoulders. "Your panels. Open them."   
  
Deadlock chuckled. "My panels are open, sweetspark. Can't you feel it?" He thrust harder, deeper, and Starscream groaned, his optics turning into liquid crimson.   
  
"You idiot. Your other panels!" Starscream hissed, and two cables slithered free of the Seeker's wrists, long and sinuous as they wound around Deadock's armor, the ends crackling with charge.   
  
Oh.   
  
That was a terrible, awful, wonderful idea and suddenly, Deadlock couldn't think of anything he wanted more than Starscream inside him. Deep inside him. Where he let few poke around because there was little more sacred than his database.   
  
His panels snapped aside before he could give it more than two thoughts, his ports crackling with charge, eagerly anticipating Starscream's cables. He wasn’t sure he made the conscious decision. He thought maybe his frame was starting to do the thinking for him.   
  
Starscream's lips curved in a grin. "Good boy," he purred, and his cables sank home, with as much of the same eager desperation as Deadlock had sank into Starscream's frame.   
  
Lightning flooded Deadlock’s sensor net.   
  
He jerked as Starscream slithered into his system like he belonged there, sliding through his firewalls, his permissions, like they didn't exist. His presence felt... right in a way it shouldn't, and a thin whine eeked out of Deadlock’s intake. His head hung, spike pulsing a beat to match the pulse of Starscream's presence in his neural net.   
  
"Now who's the berthhopper, hm?" Starscream asked, and his tone was both sly and wicked.   
  
Deadlock shuddered again, his fingers flexing on Starscream's hips. He went utterly still, buried deep in Starscream, but all his focus on the way Starscream moved inside him, touching every inch of his processor and memory banks and coding. Marking them, claiming them, as surely as Deadlock had staked himself on Starscream.   
  
"Look at you, Deadlock. You let me in so easily. You're practically giving yourself to me," Starscream crooned, but his vocals were raw and riddled with static, his ventilations coming in shuddered bursts, and his optics bright and hungry.   
  
Deadlock's knees wobbled. His vision blurred on the edges, until Starscream was the only thing in focus, the long lithe lines of him, the brightness of his paint, the stark contrast of the cold metal table to the fierce heat that was Starscream.   
  
Pleasure twisted and wound at the base of his spinal strut. It gathered in his groin, throbbed through his spike, but overload, the peak of it, Deadlock couldn't seem to grasp it. He thrust, and he strained, and he gasped, but it was like someone had an iron grip on his array.   
  
His vents roared.   
  
Thin, wispy fingers plucked along his sensornet, and Deadlock moaned. Starscream's smirk turned devilish, even as he slicked his lips and ground down on Deadlock’s spike.   
  
"Who belongs to who?" Starscream asked, almost sing-song.   
  
Deadlock's spike pulsed. And then it did something very, very weird. It started to swell, thickening at the base, as long, heavy pulses of heat and pressure started to gather in his groin. Confusion set through Deadlock in a wave.   
  
It didn't hurt. It was, in fact, the opposite. It was almost as good an overload, but more like the build up to one. that precipice of ecstasy he used to wish would last forever. As his spike swelled, that feeling grew stronger and stronger.   
  
"What the frag?" Starscream hissed, as his optics went dark and angry, and there under the surface, a touch of fear. He jerked, but pinned beneath Deadlock’s bulk, he went nowhere. "Wait? You have a knot?"   
  
"A what?" Deadlock groaned as his spike throbbed again and when he went to pull back from Starscream, he found he couldn't, the base of his spike had thickened too much, trapping his spike in Starscream’s valve.   
  
"Frag!" Starscream snarled. "Frag, frag, frag." He thrashed beneath Deadlock, his valve cycling down hard.  
  
Deadlock grunted as Starscream's movements tugged on his spike, but he couldn't slip free. He was locked in place, Starscream's valve in a delicious squeeze. He groaned, pleasure zipping up and down his spinal strut.   
  
“Stop moving,” Deadlock ground out, though another part of him wanted Starscream to keep squirming because damn if it didn’t feel good. Especially with Starscream’s presence sinking deeper in his neuronet, permeating every inch of him on the inside.   
  
He should be trying to break free.   
  
All he wanted to do was throw open every door, every lock, and let Starscream into every vault. It was horrifying and terrifying and everything he wanted. Protest bubbled up on the tip of his glossa, until it wafted away, leaving him warm and gooey in the center, tipping on the precipice of overload with Starscream trapped beneath him.   
  
“Pull out!” Starscream snarled, and his claws sank in deep, deep enough to hurt, and his presence slashed like fire through Deadlock’s internals. The bitter scent of spilled energon wafted through the air as Starscream’s talons nicked Deadlock’s lines.   
  
He reared back and took Starscream with him, their arrays completely locked together. Starscream hissed and smacked the back of Deadlock’s thighs with his heels, dragging Deadlock close again.   
  
“Make up your damn mind,” Deadlock snapped.   
  
“There’s no point. You’re knotted now, you fragger!” Starscream grabbed him by the arms, squeezed, and Deadlock’s armor creaked under the pressure, but didn’t bend. He was made of sturdy stuff.   
  
“I don’t even know what that means!” Deadlock growled before he thrust forward, incrementally, and moaned as charge rocketed through his array, bouncing around his spike, and Starscream’s valve rippled around him in a sinuous wave.   
  
Starscream’s thighs slid along his hips. “That’s because you’re an idiot.” He rocked up, visibly shivering as his spike rubbed over Deadlock’s abdomen. “Just overload and get it over with!”  
  
“Stop, go, yes, no, make up your fragging mind,” Deadlock grumbled, but Starscream yanked him down into a kiss, one that was heat and denta and glossa, and frustration melted back into need.   
  
It might have had something to do with the way Starscream was plugged into him, effortlessly sliding through his neural pathways, dragging ghostly touches along his pleasure center. Scratch that. It might have been entirely because of Starscream, who seemed to wrap spectral fingers around Deadlock’s erotic coding and yanked.   
  
_Hard_.   
  
His first overload took him by surprise. There was no buildup, no twisting-tightening of a knot of tension. There was just a tiny explosion of pleasure, a jerk of his body, a spurt of his spike, transfluid striping the inside of Starscream’s valve. But Deadlock didn’t soften. His spike stayed firm and unyielding, trapped within Starscream.   
  
He had a moment to contemplate it before the explosion burst behind his optical feed again, heavier and stronger this time. Overload. Again. Deadlock groaned into Starscream’s mouth, fingers curling tight on the Seeker’s hips, his frame juttering in arrhythmic rocks against Starscream.   
  
Again.   
  
Charge crawled over and through his armor in tingling waves. He felt his spike contract, felt the heavy, hot pulse of transfluid, felt the little jerk of a thrust his hips made.   
  
Again.   
  
His vents roared, his field exploded, and Starscream sank his claws deep. He made a sound, a rumble, and Deadlock thought it might have been a laugh, too.   
  
Again. Again. Again.   
  
Each overload was stronger and heavier than the last, like it was pulling on something deep in the pit of his pelvic array, clenching tight. Transfluid burst out of his spike, filling Starscream’s valve and Deadlock growled, humping the Seeker like some kind of mad beast. His world narrowed to another tunnel, where Starscream was what he needed to sate his hunger, and encouragement whispered in his audial, though Starscream’s lips hadn’t moved.   
  
He kissed Starscream and the taste of energon smeared between them. It lingered in the air, the stings of Starscream’s talons distant compared to the pleasure broiling in his array.   
  
Starscream slid through his neuronet, wrapped fingers around his pleasure center, and squeezed. Deadlock snarled as he overloaded, pushing hard and deep into Starscream, transfluid tank emptying and vision streaking white. His denta sank into Starscream's intake, Starscream jerking beneath him, but Deadlock held on, until his frame stopped seizing and the ecstasy gave himself back to his frame.   
  
He sagged over Starscream, panting, thoughts spinning wildly. He'd never had an overload like that, never felt anything like it. He shifted experimentally, and the weird swelling at the base of his spike had gone. His spike gradually depressurized.   
  
Starscream's engines whined. "Get off! You're too heavy!"   
  
Deadlock chuckled, but it was slow and static, like his thoughts weren't firing at the correct speed. He pushed himself up, looking down at Starscream with a lazy grin.   
  
"You complain a lot," he slurred. He felt pleasure-drunk, in a good way. He never could have imagined fragging Starscream would be this much fun. They should solve all their arguments this way.   
  
Starscream rolled his optics and kicked Deadlock in the aft with a heel. "Don't be selfish," he demanded, pushing and tugging at him, hips thrusting and rocking in denied pleasure. "Finish me!"   
  
Oh. His spike was still hard, still bobbing at the apex of his groin, fluid seeping liberally from the tip, and biolights a harsh, angry glow.   
  
“M’not selfish,” Deadlock muttered, to be contrary.  
  
He slid out of Starscream and pulled the Seeker up by the hips, up and up, until he could wrap his mouth around Starscream’s spike and draw Starscream down his intake.   
  
Starscream made an unholy sound and bucked up against him, hands pawing uselessly, his fans squealing a need for cooler air. He spat a garbled sentence at Deadlock, or maybe he just didn’t know the language. Maybe it was a curse or encouragement.   
  
Deadlock didn’t care.   
  
He grinned around his mouthful, minded his fangs, and sucked Starscream’s spike like he was getting paid for it. He used to be paid good for this, so he knew he was good. He drank in the pleasure striping Starscream’s face, savored the steady throb of the Seeker on his glossa. Primus, he was gorgeous, and Deadlock wanted to claim him.   
  
This was a start. This was a good start.   
  
Deadlock swallowed, intake flexing around the head of Starscream’s spike, and Starscream overloaded, wings battering the table as he spilled down Deadlock’s intake and over his glossa. He tasted sweet-bitter and ozone-fresh, and Deadlock swallowed every drop. He suckled Starscream through the tremors, then lowered him back down, licking the taste of Starscream from his lips.   
  
“Not selfish,” Deadlock repeated as he nuzzled the thoroughly wrecked Seeker, swearing he heard Starscream purr. “Say it.”   
  
Starscream chuckled, static-thick and hoarse. “You’ll do.”  
  
A hand gripped the back of Deadlock’s neck, dragging him in for a kiss only a few shades violent than the one they’d started with. Lips and denta and glossa, and something felt absolutely right about it. Even with Starscream’s cables swaying because he was still connected to Deadlock.   
  
Where the tiny edge of Deadlock’s thought patterns had been ranting and railing against this turn of events, there was silence. Because this wasn’t weird at all. This was the way it should be. This was right.   
  
This was the way they were meant to be.   


 

~

  
  
The fugue would wear off eventually, and then Starscream would be in trouble. Until then, he had to admit, the half-dopey, half-lovestruck, all stupid look on Deadlock’s stupid face was actually pretty charming. He had potential.   
  
He had a fragging knot.   
  
Starscream winced. His valve ached, but nothing he couldn’t recover from. It was just unexpected. He wasn’t nearly prepared enough. Next time would be different.   
  
Wait.   
  
Next time?   
  
Why the frag was he already thinking about next time?   
  
Deadlock sloppily mouthed Starscream's intake, tonguing the multiple bites he'd left in Starscream's cables. He shivered at the unexpected sensation, struggling to withdraw his awareness from Deadlock's frame, where it wanted to linger. It was like trying to pull free from tar, Deadlock clinging to him with digital tenacity.   
  
Starscream squirmed away from Deadlock, plucking his cables from Deadlock’s port in a quick snap. "Enough. We have work to do."   
  
"Work, you say, after I've fragged you into this table? Way to spoil the mood." Deadlock laughed against his intake, but he pulled back, and stared baldly at Starscream's exposed array. "I think I prefer you this way, beneath me and filled with my transfluid." He brushed his lips over Starscream's valve for emphasis.   
  
Starscream kicked him, foot solidly planted in Deadlock's chestplate with a forceful shove back. “You’re a sleaze.”   
  
“You weren’t complaining when I was fragging you.” Deadlock leered at him, lips shiny-slick with Starcream’s lubricant, before he pulled a mesh cloth from his subspace to wipe his face clean.   
  
“You have your uses.” Starscream sat up and glared at the mess between his thighs. There was so much transfluid. Damn, he hated knots. “I need to shower. We can continue our discussion tomorrow.”   
  
Deadlock rolled his optics. “Oh, can we?” He shoved his dirtied meshcloth in subspace and performed an exaggerated bow. “So happy I could service you, Starscream. If this humble grounder can ever be of use again, don’t hesitate to let me know.”   
  
Starscream bared his denta in a grin. “Funny, when you say that, it actually sounds like you mean for me to go frag myself.”   
  
“Wow. You’re not as stupid as they say you are.” Deadlock spun on a heelstrut with a backward wave. “I’m out of here.”   
  
Good riddance.   
  
Starscream waited until he was gone to slide from the table and take stock of his situation. Thoroughly fragged, dripping with transfluid, in desperate need of a wash -- and no closer to an understanding of his kind and Fangs then he was before he began this desperate seduction. Perhaps the elders were right.   
  
Or maybe he needed to try harder. Try a different Fang.   
  
First, however, to the washracks.  
  
And that should have been the end of that.   
  
But no less than four hours after they went their separate ways, after Starscream scrubbed himself clean in the washracks, fixed every scratch with a nanite pen, and climbed into his berth with a long-awaited datapad, someone chimed the door to his quarters.   
  
That was unusual enough in itself. Especially when the visitor became relentless, laying on the chime with a continuous ring that could not be ignored.   
  
Starscream threw himself out of the berth and slammed the door open. "What?" he demanded before he fully registered who on the other side.  
  
Hands slammed into his shoulders, knocking him back into the room. Starscream stumbled as Deadlock roared at him, "What did you do to me?"   
  
Starscream's head spun. The door whooshed shut, locking them inside. "What the frag are you talking about?" he asked as Deadlock stalked toward him, intent glowing in his optics.   
  
"Why the frag can't I stop thinking about you?" Deadlock growled, and he crowded Starscream up against the berth, trapping him in place, all heat and mass and anger boiling in his field. "Why do I have to have you again?"   
  
Starscream eyed the blaster he'd left on his side table. "It's not my fault I'm irresistible to you."   
  
Deadlock snarled at him, and Primus, his anger shouldn't have been so thrilling, so arousing, but it made lubricant gather in Starscream's valve, and his ventilations quickened.   
  
"That's not what happened, and you know it," Deadlock snapped. He poked Starscream in the chestplate, right on his central seam. "You plugged into me. What the frag did you do?"   
  
"I didn't force you into anything, you aft." Starscream batted Deadlock's hand away and wondered if he could get to his blaster in time. "And I didn't do anything to you."   
  
A sneer took some of the attraction out of Deadlock’s face. "I don't like you," Deadlock growled. "You're sexy, yeah, I'll give you that, but one frag should've been enough. It's not." He leaned in closer, their lips inches apart. "I don't want you, but I do."   
  
Starscream worked his intake. "You're not making any sense."   
  
"Tell me about it." Deadlock cupped his face and dragged him in for a kiss before Starscream could cycle his optics, his lips and glossa urgent as their mouths clashed.   
  
Starscream moaned into the kiss, gripping Deadlock's hips, dragging him into contact. Deadlock was brash and irritating and rubbed Starscream all the wrong ways, but he was attractive, and he was a Fang, and it had been a long while since Starscream could indulge himself like this.   
  
If Deadlock needed the excuse that Starscream had 'done something' to him, so be it. Win-win-win.   
  
He gripped Deadlock's finial and pulled his head back. "Don't knot me this time," Starscream growled.   
  
Amber optics darkened at him. "I don't know how I did it the first time. I make no promises."   
  
Typical.   
  
"Fine. We'll do it on my terms then," Starscream said.   
  
"Whatever." Deadlock ground against him, spike popping free to slide hot and hard over Starscream's belly. "Give it up, Seeker. Take responsibility."   
  
"Frag you." Starscream shoved him, not that it did much good. "Get on the fragging berth. And shut up. I like it better when you don't talk."   
  
Deadlock laughed, and Starscream couldn't read the emotion behind it -- amusement, mockery, who knew. Deadlock was a rabid dog only Megatron could truly bring to heel, and Starscream didn’t have a leash handy.   
  
"Same could be said about you, sweetspark," he said, but he was remarkably obedient as he pulled onto the berth, and didn't protest when Starscream climbed on top of him, scraping his valve panel over Deadlock's exposed spike. "Better make this good."   
  
Starscream huffed and fitted Deadlock inside of him, shivering as the thick spike filled him in all the right places. "What did I say about talking?"   
  
Deadlock chuckled and grabbed his hips. "Figure out how to shut me up then."   
  
It was a challenge, Starscream knew it. He was too brilliant to be swayed by challenges. But his optics narrowed, and he glared down at Megatron's favorite.   
  
Challenge accepted.   
  
They fragged, hard and fast, Starscream riding Deadlock in a relentless pursuit of his own pleasure, and when he told Deadlock to heel, he crowed with triumph as Deadlock snarled and obeyed. Had a submissive streak, that one, and what an utter delight it was to indulge.   
  
Starscream overloaded twice before he let Deadlock grab his hips and thrust with abandon, his field a hot, sticky mass of desperate need. He all but begged Starscream to plug in, and the prospect of having free rein to Deadlock's processor again filled him with delight.   
  
His cables surged into Deadlock's ports with fierce splashes of blue static charge, and Starscream dove into Deadlock eagerly, riding the pathways he'd already carved for himself on the first run, not that Deadlock didn't open to him as freely as he did before. It was intoxicating, to have this much freedom, and Starscream revelled in the ecstasy of it.   
  
He overloaded again with the taste of Deadlock in his cables, and wrapped an iron claw around Deadlock's pleasure center, twisting and pulling to drag the Fang down with him. Deadlock splashed hot and sticky in his valve, with no sign of his knot thank Primus, and his field relented to the heavy weight of Starscream's own.   
  
He could get used to this.   
  
He plucked along Deadlock's sensornet in the aftermath, grinning as Deadlock twitched and moaned beneath him, still half-pressurized in Starscream's valve. Starscream toyed with Deadlock because he could, because the pleasure streaking across Deadlock's face was much better than the arrogant disdain he usually courted. He was almost attractive like this.   
  
Maybe he was the one who needed to spend the war on his back.   
  
"I hate you," Deadlock growled as he pawed at Starscream's hips and made little jerking motion, his spike slowly firming up again.   
  
Starscream shivered through a moan and slid his hands up Deadlock's chestplate, tracing the scores he'd left earlier that Deadlock hadn't bothered to fix. "Feeling's mutual, sweetspark," he purred, mocking Deadlock as Deadlock had mocked him. It was only fair.   
  
"I hate you," Deadlock repeated, like he was trying to convince himself, and he curled up, grabbed Starscream by the back of the neck, and yanked him in for a kiss.   
  
Denta clanged. Starscream tasted energon. Deadlock bit him, and Starscream poured fire along Deadlock's sensornet, until he writhed.   
  
Time slipped away at some point.   
  
Starscream remembered, tangentially, checking his chronometer multiple times, but couldn't recall what it actually said.   
  
They fragged. They recharged. They fragged again.   
  
And a little voice at the back of Starscream's processor nagged at him. There was something wrong, as much as there was something perfectly right, perfectly ideal about this.   
  
It wasn't until he managed to stagger away from Deadlock, disconnecting as he did so, on the hunt for energon and coolant and a washrack, that it hit him. That a spot of clarity broke through the clamorous din of need and control.   
  
Deadlock was a Fang.   
  
Starscream was a Ghost.   
  
And somehow, he'd made Deadlock his Fang. As little as he knew about the bonds and how they functioned and how they formed, there was no denying the pull in the pit of his tanks, the awareness of Deadlock at the edge of his thoughts, or the way Deadlock heeled so willingly, when he never had before.   
  
Frag.   
  
Frag, frag, frag, frag, frag.   
  
What in the Pit had he done?  


 

~

  
  
Starscream had been in his private washrack for a long time. Which a) wasn't fair because Deadlock didn't have a private washrack, and b) not exactly worrisome, but definitely made Deadlock angry. He wanted to get clean, too.   
  
He could leave, go elsewhere, like the public 'racks, but the last thing Deadlock wanted was to leave this room without answers. So instead, he lay in this transfluid-soaked berth, his entire frame thrumming in post-multiple overload bliss, and he steamed. He fumed.   
  
What the frag had Starscream done to him? And why, even now, did he want nothing more than to pin the Seeker beneath him and keep making him scream? Why did he crave having Starscream in his processor, in his circuits, in his coding?   
  
He wasn't leave here without answers, even if he had to pry them from Starscream's manipulative, gorgeous lips.   
  
Deadlock leapt out of bed and grabbed one of Starscream's cloths, wiping at himself with harsh, angry movements. He threw it on the floor because he couldn't see a laundry basket and he started to pace. He didn't like not having control of himself. He didn't like this compulsion.   
  
And if he didn't like what Starscream had to say, Deadlock would shoot him between the optics and deal with the fallout and Megatron later. He hadn't clawed his way out of the Dead End to be turned into someone's toy.   
  
The door to the washrack opened. Steam billowed out. Deadlock's blaster leapt into his hands before he thought twice about it, and he aimed at the doorway as Starscream stepped into view.   
  
"I want an explanation," Deadlock said, cold as the streets he used to sleep on. "And you have one minute before I start firing."   
  
Starscream arched an orbital ridge. "You think this is the first time I've stared down the barrel of a blaster?" He sauntered into the room, sleek and clean and irresistible. "It's going to take more than a minute to explain. Not that it matters. You won't pull the trigger."   
  
Deadlock growled at him. "Try me."   
  
"Did I say won't? I meant 'can't'." Starscream folded his arms and cocked a hip. "Your coding won't let you. Not anymore."   
  
"What the frag are you talking about!?" Deadlock's blaster wavered. His finger curled around the trigger, but froze in place.   
  
Starscream rolled his optics. "If it makes you feel better, I can't kill you either."   
  
"Start. Making. Sense," Deadlock demanded through gritted teeth. He couldn't pull the trigger, but he wasn't above summoning Megatron.   
  
Starscream looked up at the ceiling as if searching for patience. "This would be easier if you knew what you are, but since you don't, I have to do it the hard way." He twisted his jaw, sighing as if the situation was more irritating for him than Deadlock. "You're a Fang."   
  
"A what?"   
  
Starscream sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "It's another term for berserker. You're stronger, faster, able to take more damage. And it's all because millennia ago, some stupid Prime got it in his stupid head to make his mechs into weapons."  
  
Deadlock stared at him.   
  
"I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's the truth. You're a Fang, and I'm what the Prime called a Ghost. The old Primes weren’t known for being creative." He wiggled his talon-tipped fingers. "Where you're mindless, brute force, I'm the quiet infiltrator, a spy who cracks into the minds of the enemy."   
  
He stowed his blaster since it was pointless. "That doesn't answer anything."   
  
"We're bonded," Starscream said.   
  
Deadlock jerked back. He pointed a shaky finger at the Seeker accusingly. “You never touched my spark!"  
  
Starscream's wings flicked as he scrubbed his face with his palms. "It has nothing to do with your spark." He muttered something subvocally that Deadlock didn't catch. "Though to be fair, I don't know how it happened, just that it did. So for lack of a better word, you're bonded to me, and that makes you mine."   
  
"I don't belong to anyone," Deadlock slashed a hand through the air. "Least of all you. Break it. Now. I don't want it."   
  
"I can't break it, you idiot!" Starscream snapped. "If I knew how, I'd have done it already. But I don't. I barely know anything about what we are as it is."   
  
Deadlock growled. His head hurt. He wanted to hit something, and Starscream would've been a convenient target, but damn, the Seeker was right. He couldn't do it. He wanted to, but something held him back.   
  
He raked his hands over his head. "So we're stuck like this."   
  
"Until I can figure out how to end it, yes."   
  
Deadlock's engine revved. He paced, for lack of anywhere else to direct his energy. "And how long is that going to take?"  
  
Starscream lifted his shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine."   
  
Deadlock scoffed and spun on a heel, pacing the other direction. "And until then?"   
  
Starscream shifted his weight, and if Deadlock had to guess, he looked guilty. "The bond sticks. It means you're mine. You can't hurt me. You'll want me. And I'll have some degree of control over you."   
  
"Control!?" Deadlock bared his denta, snarling. "Who gave you the right!?"   
  
Starscream folded his arms again. He glanced over Deadlock's left shoulder. "If it helps, it was an accident."   
  
"That doesn't fragging make me feel better!" He itched to hold his blasters, to fire them at the source of his fury. He seethed and whirled toward the door, determined to put distance between himself and Starscream.   
  
“Deadlock.”   
  
“What?” he roared, whipping back toward Starscream, because now that voice tiptoed up his spinal strut and sat at the base of his neck. It was like a leash, and the collar was around Deadlock’s throat, and all Starscream had to do was tug.   
  
Starscream sucked on his bottom lip before freeing it. “I’m going to fix this. But in the meantime, don’t tell Megatron a thing.”   
  
“Why would I? The last thing I want is anyone finding this out, least of all Lord Megatron.” Deadlock rolled his optics. “Are we done?”   
  
“Not even close, but we are for now.” Starscream cycled a long, noisy ventilation, and flicked a hand at Deadlock. “Go. Cool off. We’ll come up with a plan later.”   
  
Deadlock’s engine revved. He threw out a salute that was more insult than respect. “Yes, sir, right away, sir. Whatever you say, master.” He sneered and spun on a heelstrut, slamming through the door the minute it opened for him.   
  
He stalked into the hallway, leaving Starscream behind him. Not that it mattered. There was a tether between them, he could feel it, stretching thinner and thinner. He didn’t know how far he would get until it snapped, dragging him back to Starscream’s embrace.   
  
What a fragged up mess of a situation.   
  
And he had a terrible feeling that it wasn’t anywhere near over.   


 

***


End file.
